On International Human Rights Day we look at the right to education. Tyler Paige is one of 11 students occupying a building at Cooper Union demanding that the college continue to offer free education. Students, faculty and alumni are united in this effort which is part of the global movement for the right to education. You can follow them onhttp://www.cusos.org/ and http://www.facebook.com/FreeCooperUni.... Lynn Petrovich, CPA and author of "Sticker Shock," exposes the fraudulent practices of Sallie Mae and other corporate student lenders. And Danny Weil, author of over 7 books who also writes on http://truth-out.org/, http://www.dailycensored.com/ and other outlets exposes the financialization of education, the monetization of students, the collusion between government and corporations, Obama's neo-liberal education agenda and what we can do about it.

We explore restrictions on the rights of people to assemble and express dissent in the United States. The First Amendment gives us the right to peaceably assemble and redress our government for our grievances. Instead of protecting that right, the government, local police and private companies are acting to prevent and stop actions of dissent. The First Amendment also gives the right to freedom of the press, but today’s press are mouthpieces for the corporate state. What is being done to preserve our rights? We speak with Kevin Gosztola who has been covering this issue for FireDogLake as the Dissenter, and Tarak Kauff, a veteran arrested at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial last Oct for protesting the war in Afghanistan. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We interview John Curl, author of "For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements and Communalism in America." John discusses the efforts to create real democracy in the US pre-dating the Revolution and obstacles to their success as well as the way these efforts have paralleled social transformation. His book results from a lifetime of research and experience in cooperatives. See our follow-up article: Cooperatives and Community Work are Part of American DNA.

We explore the extent of surveillance by the United States. Why is there so much surveillance and is the increasing surveillance of people in the United States justified? We discuss which is more harmful to our society, leaks or the policies that are leaked. Our first guest is Thomas Drakewho was prosecuted for allegedly disclosing National Security Agency secrets years before Edward Snowden surfaced. Drake says the U.S. government has an “industrial-scale” surveillance system that “the Stasi in East Germany would have drooled over.” Then Fred Branfman, who recently wrote “America’s Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security,” is our guest. He argues, ”And today’s U.S. executive branch policies pose an even greater long-term threat to U.S. strategic interests, not only abroad but at home. The evidence is overwhelming, including the statements by several dozen U.S. national security experts cited at the end of my recent piece, that U.S. leaders are not protecting national security but rather weakening it as never before.”

Gar Alperovitz, author of “America Beyond Capitalism” and “What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution” speaks about the growing economic democracy movement in the US and how that is bringing evolutionary reconstruction to transition to the new economy.